On Saturday, Charles Carreon updated his federal lawsuit against Matthew Inman (creator of the humor website The Oatmeal). Carreon's suit now calls for a temporary restraining order, asking the court to mandate IndieGoGo not transfer any of the more than $220,000 raised as of Monday, June 25. If the court sides with Carreon, funds would not go to Inman or to the target charities, the National Wildlife Foundation (NWF) and the American Cancer Society (ACS).

“If IndieGoGo pays Inman the money in the Charitable Fund, and Inman personally donates the money to NWF and ACS, he will be unjustly enriched by receiving a large tax write-off that should properly be allocated pro-rata to the 14,406 small donors who contributed to the Charitable Fund,” Carreon writes. “Pilfering very small amounts of money from very large numbers of people is a stock mechanism for conducting computer and Internet fraud. Preventing Inman from exploiting the giving public in such a fashion is in the public interest.”

Inman previously wrote this week on his own website that once this “silly bullshit [gets] dismissed,” he should have the money from IndieGoGo in “about a week.”

“Once the money is moved, I still plan on withdrawing $211k in cash and taking a photo to send to Charles Carreon and FunnyJunk, along with the drawing of FunnyJunk's mother,” he wrote. “After the photo is mailed I'll be sending checks to the charities. I'll also post receipts as well as public confirmations from both charities that they received every penny that was promised.”

The updated filings also reveal that Carreon himself donated $10 to the so-called “BearLove campaign,” as a way to gain standing for himself. Ars was alerted of the new filings on Saturday night by Adam Steinbaugh, a Los Angeles-based recent law school graduate. The entire FunnyJunk/The Oatmeal affair is a twisted tale of how the legal system can be used to make intellectual property and defamation claims against bona fide humorous and satirical websites.

Nearly a month of Carreon's legal wranglings

Inman, of course, was the original target of Carreon’s legal threats. On June 2, 2012, Inman received a letter from Carreon, in his capacity as representing counsel for FunnyJunk (a rival humor website). The letter accused Inman of defamation and required that he send FunnyJunk, via Carreon, a check for $20,000. Inman then launched what became known as the BearLove campaign as a way to mock this legal threat.

"A minor victory" for Charles Carreon

One of Carreon’s primary complaints against Inman is that he is engaging in a “bait and switch campaign.” This came after Inman announced, due to overwhelming support for the campaign, that he would be expanding the list of target charities.

“Bear Love campaign donors didn’t simply designate Inman to receive and disburse donations according to his liking. We had donated to two charities—ACS and NWF—and no others,” Carreon writes in the June 30 filing. “Thus, I further asked myself: ‘I wonder who those other two charities are that he is talking about? Perhaps they are affiliated with Inman?’”

“It was clear to me that quite aside from the requirements of charitable fundraising law, Inman could not acquire a fund for one purpose and then dispose of it according to his discretion. I and the other donors had a right to have our donations go to ACS and NWF, and nowhere else.”

In a blog post last week, Inman also states that he will stick to the original target charities “as a way to avoid further litigation.” Inman added: “If Carreon wanted a minor victory, he got one here.“

Carreon's latest filing was written to Inman’s attorney, Venkat Balasubramani, a Seattle-based tech lawyer who has previously been a contributor at Ars. In that, Carreon added he was willing to settle the entire case if Inman would “disclaim all interest.” The offer was declined by Balasubramani to Carreon in a letter dated June 22. Inman is also being represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Update courtesy of Steinbaugh: the TRO hearing will likely occur this week. Carreon is requesting an OK to attend that hearing telephonically.

Update 2: On Sunday, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is representing Inman, also filed an opposition (PDF) to the temporary restraining order. In it, the EFF says Carreon's arguments lack both "merit" and "context."

"The Court should put a stop to such gamesmanship, beginning with the instant Application," the EFF attorneys write. "As explained in detail below, Mr. Carreon has not met and cannot meet the exacting standard for a temporary restraining order. His claims are meritless, he faces no irreparable harm, the balance of equities favors Mr. Inman and the public interest and Mr. Inman’s First Amendment rights would be thwarted by an injunction. Mr. Carreon’s application should be denied."

In the filing, the attorneys add that Inman's actions are protected under the First Amendment, that he is engaged in non-commercial speech, that he is not a commercial fundraiser, and that he did not make any misrepresentations about the nature of the charitable fundraising.

The EFF concludes: "It is obvious that Mr. Carreon made his nominal $10 donation for the primary purpose of fostering his legal argument and attempting to seize control over the fate of the fund, and not out of any genuine support for the [BearLove] campaign. His attempt to interfere with the campaign to raise funds in the name of criticizing the cease and desist letter he wrote for FunnyJunk does not mean he lost money or suffered any legally cognizable injury."

Cyrus Farivar
Cyrus is the Senior Business Editor at Ars Technica, and is also a radio producer and author. His latest book, Habeas Data, about the legal cases over the last 50 years that have had an outsized impact on surveillance and privacy law in America, is due out in May 2018 from Melville House. Emailcyrus.farivar@arstechnica.com//Twitter@cfarivar